"Dr Linda Smith from DAFF (Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) and her team have done very comprehensive testing all over the channel irrigation area at Theodore and pretty much every paddock's got some numbers (of nematodes) in them.

"Some are very low and some are very high and there's pretty much everything in between.

"We really noticed it after the floods we had, for some reason it must've exacerbated the problem - Linda tells us that they were obviously here before the floods, but we hadn't really noticed the symptoms."

Mr French has planted wheat over the last two years in the hope it might solve the problem.

"We've put in a couple of wheat crops, the last couple of years just following the cotton crop it's been wet enough to plant a crop of wheat straight in.

"For a couple of reasons - for a green manure crop and also it was theorised that it might be beneficial as far as the nematodes go to knock the numbers down.

"Last year we found that there was certainly a big improvement in the following cotton crop, but we're unsure whether it was actually the wheat or the extra tillage that the ground got because of it.

"But we don't really mind, we got the organic matter in the soil and we got a good benefit out of it."

Cotton grower Greg Austin planted corn earlier this year as a possible solution.

That corn is now coming off, and he's planting more corn for harvest next January.